People from countries that have been dictatorships within the last 50 years or so, is there still some support for bringing back the old dictatorship among a sizeable contingent of the population? What kind of arguments do they usually use to advocate for it?

7 comments

1. Openly? There are not a lot of them, but there are some.

   Far-right “nostalgics” that would probably want pretty much the same things as they were during the dictatorship? Yes, and they got a sizeable number of votes in the latest general elections, as well as in the two latest Autonomous Communities elections (Castilla y León and Andalucía). 17,64% of the votes in Castilla y León (they are part of the government now alongside the “traditional” right) and 13,46% in Andalucía (they are not part of the government).

   They have a possibility of a vice presidency in the 2023 Spanish elections, should the right wing parties win.

2. Definitely not.

   I mean, they are people who have sentiment to those times because they were teenagers or young adults and still had little worries back then. While my grandma who’s almost 90, lived her all productive adult life during communism and reminded of says that it was the worst that ever happened to Poland and “you don’t have to eat potato peels like I did”

   General consensus I would say is: good all of that is gone now, let’s not do that again.

3. but countries in ex-Warsaw Pact weren’t dictatorships, at least not all of them. or does the dictatorship of one party count? if yes, then many people are nostalgic for aspects of it like public housing, especially with current prices, lack of space, green areas and usability of new residential areas, or “oh there was railway during communism, now there’s no railway”, but it doesn’t require bringing back communism (police state, poverty, travelling abroad almost impossible, no free media etc) to be resolved.

   I think most people here are aware of that, but for example my parents were really happy when they got oranges for christmas, the shops were usually empty (or filled with vinegar lol) getting meat was hard, even chocolate had to be brought/sent from abroad. obviously it differed depending on the time period. my grandma couldn’t get a promotion in her job, because she didn’t want to become a member of The Party. Since then a lot has changed, and especially since 2004

4. some insignificant number of nostalgic people you don’t really hear about often and this is pretty much it. Keep in mind people profiting from that was mostly people over 40-50 years old and the switch was over 30 years ago, so most of them are probably dead now.

   Even the current communist party doesn’t want socialism back, at least not openly, but they are a bit history now anyway.

5. Not the dictatorship part unless you mean PiS just with them in power now 😭.

   People would like to bring back some aspects of live under communism though. Public transport, lots of activities for kids, public housing, aspects of city planning, stability, social security and others.

6. I am from Germany. There are some people (especially in East Germany, Former DDR) who would like to have a dictatorship back. Maybe not like the DDR, more right-wing. Some are also against covid vaccines and restrictions (they call themselves Querdenker) and they mostly vote for the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, alternative party for Germany). I hope this party will never be in power but who knows?

7. East German here. The people wanting back something like the GDR are getting less and less. One reason would be that it is mostly old people who had a significant part of their adult life under the socialist regime and those are slowly dying of old age. But the thing is, really no one would say they want a dictatorship back, because people that are nostalgic about those times had in some form a better life then and they would rehect the fact, that the regime was a dictatorship.